


lovely, hiding

by ultalumna (yujael)



Series: weightless, weightless [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Happy Ending, Wings, and everything is cool because no one likes suffering anyway, but it turns out not everything is a trash fire, when you spend years agonizing over keeping a secret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 03:18:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18274700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yujael/pseuds/ultalumna
Summary: Prompto has kept a secret his entire life. This is fine. He'd rather do that than lose all his friends. Regular people just don't have wings, and so if he has to go his whole life keeping them a secret to keep his friends, he will.





	lovely, hiding

Prompto has kept the secret under wraps for as long as he can remember. What people would think if they were to find out had been his biggest concern for most of his life, but now he’s only concerned with what he’ll  _lose_.

His family may already be distant, but to lose them entirely would still sting. And to lose his friends--his  _best_ friend--would be even worse. Before, he knew he could survive with everyone knowing what he is-- _if_ he'd be allowed to live in the first place--but now…

Now, he doesn’t want to be alone again. It’s lonely work, keeping the secret all by himself, but the consequences would surely be worse.

So, he wraps the wings up tightly. He wears loose shirts and baggy sweaters. When feathers fall loose, everyone jokes that he brought them in with the wind at his heels. He’s careful with actions that might land him on his back and crush the delicate bones hiding there, and he doesn’t give anybody the chance to look at his back for very long, either.

Prompto’s not good at a lot of things in the social arena, but he’s good at keeping this one secret. He doesn’t want to think of what might happen otherwise. He doesn’t want to lose Ignis and his fantastic cooking and dry humour, or Gladio and his warm company. He especially doesn’t want to lose Noctis.

It means a lifetime of keeping a secret--if he’s lucky enough--but what does that mean except a lifetime of getting better at it?

 

*

 

For years, Prompto keeps his secret under wraps with no one any wiser. He wears loose shirts, which are good for Insomnia’s warm climate, baggy sweaters, which are good for sneaking snacks into movies, and he bows out of roughhousing with Noctis at just the right moments, which good for overall self-preservation.

And then comes an evening at Noctis’ apartment during their final year of high school. All four of them are there to celebrate some hard earned perfect test scores with a little bit of Ignis’ cooking and a lot of video games. Ignis and Gladio are crowded into the kitchen while Prompto and Noctis shove each other around on the couch, and it’s the first stress-free night they’ve had since they started cramming for those pesky tests.

And it’s a good night, too, until Prompto pushes Noctis onto his back against the cushion and then hears something  _snap_. Noctis freezes immediately, hand darting underneath himself, and Prompto starts laughing.

“Dude, did I just crack a couple of your knuckles?” he asks through his giggles, which stop cold in his throat when he looks at Noctis’ expression again, pale and withdrawn. He pulls back immediately and tries to figure out where his elbow might have landed, or if he’d accidentally aggravated Noctis’ back. “Noct? You okay, buddy?”

“Uh,” Noctis replies before scooting away from Prompto and then rolling off the couch. Prompto’s heart sinks--Noctis has never tried to escape like this before--and then he sees something jutting out from under Noctis’ shirt.

It’s a big, black shape, uneven and fluffy. No-- _feathery_. It jerks back up as quickly as it had fallen down, but the damage is done. Prompto sits on his knees on the couch, frozen as Noctis yanks the back of his shirt back down after it had gotten hiked up by the--by the feathers underneath. The--

“Noct?” Prompto asks again, a little breathless. His fingers shake and his wings burn.

Noctis, still trying to haul ass on his hands and knees, stops. He looks over his shoulder slowly, lips pressed together, eyes tight. Seconds tick by silently and Prompto doesn’t dare to glance at the kitchen, where Ignis and Gladio have fallen completely still as well. His attention is wholly on Noctis, on the lump under his shirt, and the small black feathers that scattered onto the floor in his haste to get away.

No way. _No way_.

“Prompto,” Noctis says finally, slowly and painfully as he turns around. Like the syllables have to be ground out of stone.

Ignis, even and sharp, asks from the kitchen, “Noct--did he see?”

Prompto laughs and it’s probably the most hysterical sound he’s ever made. “I’m pretty sure I saw. What’s going on, Noct?”

Gladio curses under his breath, his voice a hissing afterthought in Prompto’s head. Prompto doesn’t have enough space in there to be afraid of their voices--the dread, the danger. Instead, he just stares and stares at Noctis’ back, Noctis’ face twisted in deep, worrying thought.

“Go wait in the hall,” Noctis says without answering anyone, directing the order toward the kitchen even though he’s looking right at Prompto, whose heart is trying to beat out of his chest. Ignis gets one word into a protest and Noctis snaps, “Let me handle this.”

Noctis rarely uses such a bite. They go, and Prompto hazards a single glance as they do. The look in Ignis’ eyes is too severe to be considered cool, and Gladio’s jaw is so tight that a vein is showing near his temple. Prompto wants to run, but he’s still frozen on the couch, rooted to the cushions before Noctis, before the feathers. There’s a question and an answer right there, but they don’t match up because--because Noctis can’t be--

Noctis stands up. His voice comes quietly now, still hard but lacking the jagged edge. “Prompto. I’m going to show you something and you can’t tell anyone. Ever. If you do… just don’t, okay? Don’t breathe a single word of this.”

And then, before Prompto can respond, Noctis reaches down and pulls his shirt up over his head. Underneath, the planes of his torso are interrupted still by straps of soft, black leather and fabric. There’s one on his left side that hangs limp and broken. Snapped. He undoes a buckle and shucks the rest of the straps away, and then--and then--

Noctis stretches his wings out behind him. Glossy black feathers reach for the ceiling and then sweep along his sides. A controller and an empty cup go flying off the coffee table next to him as his wings brush over it. The sound barely even registers in Prompto’s brain. All his processing power is taken up by the wings, by their size--massive--and the iridescent colours in the light--beautiful. Noctis’ feathers whisper against each other, the only sound in the room aside from Prompto’s heartbeat rushing in his ears, as his wings settle against his back, folded comfortably.

He stares down at Prompto expectantly, his expression a poor parody of his usual impassiveness.  Prompto’s pretty sure his own face gives away every shred of the shock he’s feeling, but he can’t be assed to do anything about that. He has every reason to be shocked.

“You--wings,” he manages to stammer out at last. His breath keeps sticking in his chest. Real sentences won’t form. Noctis has wings. He can repeat the thought, over and over again, but he can’t say it. Because he shouldn’t--Noctis shouldn’t--

“I have wings,” Noctis says, nodding stiffly. “And you can’t tell anyone. Do you understand, Prom? This is really important.”

Prompto realizes then that Noctis is begging him. It comes like a punch to his gut, his heart--his  _wings_. In this very moment, Noctis is  _scared_. Noctis doesn’t want to lose Prompto, either. Prompto scrambles for the appropriate response. He knows what it should be-- _yes_. He understands. He doesn’t understand everything, but he can still keep it a secret. Those words stick, too, though, because he also knows what his answer  _has_ to be.

He reaches for the hem of his sweater, even though his fingers have gone numb, even though he’s always tried so _hard_ \--

He pulls the sweater off. It’s not enough. His shirt is still in the way, all baggy and too much, now. Too much. He all but tears it off, and that’s when he hears Noctis’ gasp, sharp as a knife. Prompto doesn’t have a fancy harness. He just has bandages and strips of old sheets and medical tape, and they take so long to rip away with his clumsy fingers and tear-soaked eyes that Noctis has to help him. He falls to his knees like a puppet with all its strings cut, and he reaches around Prompto’s hands like he’s holding a wounded animal.

And Prompto’s wings  _ache_ when they’re finally free, when he can finally stretch them out, joints creaking and snapping as his feathers, white dusted dirty gold, brush the floor. He squeezes his eyes shut so that the tears will stop falling, so that his heart will stop racing, but neither of those things happens.

Instead, he hears Noctis whisper, “You have wings.”

Prompto opens his eyes again. Noctis is watching his wings as they shift and shudder against Prompto’s back, his eyes wide and full of--of--

\--wonder.

And the tears come back all over again as Prompto finally breaks down the rest of the way and chokes out, “I thought I was a _monster_.”

Noctis’ arms are around him in a second, firm and reassuring. Prompto’s never felt so much skin on skin, and the warmth only doubles when he practically tackles Noctis in response, leaning into the embrace with every limb he can fit into it.

“You have them too!” he says gleefully just before he gets a face full of black feathers. They’re so much softer than his own, so smooth and well groomed despite being contained all day. Prompto laughs again, but this time it comes from his belly, not the top of his throat, and this time he feels a rush of overwhelming joy. “I thought I was all alone--I thought I was--but you too!”

Noctis is laughing into his ear, too, and he sounds like a dying man who just found water. “I thought I was the only one, too. But you’re here. _Prompto_.”

They’re here, both of them. Prompto has never given up his secret before, but now--now he knows he isn’t alone. Not anymore. There’s no dread, no fear in this moment. There are only his arms around Noctis, Noctis’ arms around him, and their fingers on each others’ wings, wet cheeks pressed together. Nothing else, not even Ignis and Gladio rushing back into the room at all the commotion. Not their twin expressions of surprise, or anything they say to each other, or try to say to Prompto and Noctis.

At the moment, there’s only each other and the weightlessness of shattered loneliness.

At the moment, Prompto thinks that this must be what flying feels like.

**Author's Note:**

> I just really, really love wingfics. The context doesn't even matter. Just slap some wings on them. 
> 
> I might continue this au, which totally doesn't adhere to canon events because I had to trade something in for the wings on their backs, y'know?


End file.
